Monthly Archives: February 2018

Social media goes further, allowing us to construct a reality defined by distinct visions of the world: We pick who we “friend” and who we follow, creating virtual communities of the likeminded. Before social media, you lived out your days in the real world of neighborhoods and workplaces that in many cases had some diversity of views, and also uncertainty about views, which led people to conceal and restrain them out of a concern for manners.

But now we can voluntarily join together with hundreds or thousands of people scattered across the country and the world who share common views about justice. That leads to the intensification of these views, as they get reinforced through combat with those on the outside of the group (who affirm contrary positions on justice) and amplified by the frenzied encouragement of those in the inside.

Science has shown that tribalism is hard-wired. Experiments and evidence dating back generations, in psychology, sociology and anthropology, have established firmly that human opinions and emotions, loyalties and affiliations, religions and customs, and even perceptions are shaped by our need to belong to a group — and by our proclivity to hate rival groups. Experimental subjects will spontaneously form in-group loyalties and out-group antipathies when assigned to teams randomly. Subjects will deny the evidence of their own eyes to agree with those around them, even if the discrepancy is blatant. There need be no trigger for tribalism, no cause or conflict. If we do not already have a tribe and a reason to be loyal to it, we will create a tribe and invent a rationale.

Not only that, but anger is also the quickest emotion to go viral. It strikes me that in the last couple decades, with the rise of the web, we’ve been able to observe a real-time experiment in which purely ideological tribes can develop, unimpeded by physical limitations. Only a decade ago, in fact, it was still common to read all sorts of gushing panegyrics to social media and how it was going to change the world for the better by allowing people everywhere to “connect,” with the blithe assumption that, having connected, people would naturally share happiness and camaraderie for the most part. But it turns out that much like it must have been on the African savanna millions of years ago, once a tribal group has the basic needs of food and shelter met, the next step is consolidating their territory and engaging in violent skirmishes with outsiders. Centuries of civilization and domestication haven’t changed that. Only a common extraterrestrial enemy can save human nature from itself.

I mentioned before that I had no interest in reading Steven Pinker’s new book, but I certainly have enjoyed reading some of the reviews it’s been attracting. I had been hopeful that John Gray would get the assignation again, and he did. We’ll see if Pinker is provoked to an angry article-length response again, as he was when Gray criticized his Better Angels of Our Nature a few years ago. Peter Harrison also wrote a fascinating review, though I believe he’s being a bit unfair when he ascribes to Pinker a teleological faith in inevitable progress, which even I have heard Pinker deny a few times. And finally, Ross Douthat had a brief but incisive take on it.

Yuval Harari is another public intellectual with a new book about humanity’s future that I don’t plan to read, but David Berlinski gave it a pretty entertaining pummeling.

The culture wars will continue to be marked by both sides scoring an unrelenting series of own-goals, with the victory going to whoever can make their supporters shut up first. The best case scenario for the Right is that Jordan Peterson’s ability to not instantly get ostracized and destroyed signals a new era of basically decent people being able to speak out against social justice; this launches a cascade of people doing so, and the vague group consisting of Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris, Steven Pinker, Jonathan Haidt, etc coalesces into a perfectly respectable force no more controversial than the gun lobby or the pro-life movement or something. With social justice no longer able to enforce its own sacredness values against blasphemy, it loses a lot of credibility and ends up no more powerful or religion-like than eg Christianity. The best case scenario for the Left is that the alt-right makes some more noise, the media is able to relentlessly keep everyone’s focus on the alt-right, the words ALT-RIGHT get seared into the public consciousness every single day on every single news website, and everyone is so afraid of being associated with the alt-right that they shut up about any disagreements with the consensus they might have. I predict both of these will happen, but the Right’s win-scenario will come together faster and they will score a minor victory.

The Lady of the House was telling me the other day about an article that explored why fandom can become so toxic. For example, the barrier to entry for becoming a Harry Potter fan is very low. To differentiate themselves from the herd, hardcore fans basically have to create tiers within their subculture to make it more exclusive for them. There’s no status in having and enjoying the same thing as every teenage mallrat. By contrast, a higher barrier to entry makes it easier for a niche group to be more welcoming to newbies, as they can trust that anyone who’s here has earned the right to be here.

Listening to her, I remembered some webcomic from several years ago which amusingly noted the differences between the social-justice left and the far right with regards to their outreach programs, shall we say. Basically, it’s easy and trendy to be on the left, and you see this reflected in the contemptuous attitude that hardcore SJWs hold toward anyone who isn’t already part of the in-group. Outsiders were frequently treated with hostility from the start, as I witnessed countless times when the social-justice virus first spread through online atheism. People who earnestly tried to engage in discussion were accused of “JAQing off” and told that it was a sign of privilege to expect answers to their stupid questions. There already existed an elite caste whose main concern was to demonstrate their higher social rank by competing to see who could be the most excoriating toward the outgroup. The highly-stigmatized far right, on the other hand, was more than happy to oblige curiosity from newcomers. Oh, you got attacked for your “white privilege,” huh? Yeah, that’s typical leftist hypocrisy, enforced by the liberal media. Would you like to learn more? Here’s some information, and oh, by the way, there’s a group that meets on Wednesday nights if you’d like to come by and hear so-and-so speak! Bring your friends!

Like I said, I saw that comic several years ago, so it seems especially prescient in hindsight, now that most of us have had occasion to rub our eyes and wonder where all these outright neo-Nazis came from all of a sudden.

In any event, right-wing politics, even of the moderate, mainstream variety, has long had a higher barrier to entry for most people. It often seems too pessimistic, too unsympathetic, too severe, too demanding. There’s no cultural status to be had in being conservative. People often age into it with experience rather than get argued into it with facile reasoning. It has struck me, though, as it has likewise apparently struck Alexander, that the shifting tectonic plates in the domestic political landscape seem to be opening up some fissures which could perhaps be filled by a more reasonable, approachable center-right coalition typified by individuals like Peterson, Harris, Haidt, Pinker, etc. With a generous helping of good fortune, maybe this trend might develop from a cultural faction into a new conservative party, leaving the big two to continue becoming more extreme. Granted, that’s only if-this, then-that, unless-this, in-which-case-that speculation. I’m certainly not holding my breath for a viable third-party option anytime in the near future. But as the Republican party continues to accommodate Trumpian populism and adapt to it rather than tame it, I can’t help but wonder where the newly-homeless conservatives are going to end up. Are they going to continue to wait out what they hope is a temporary spell of madness, or will they eventually walk away and possibly encounter the refugees from the left somewhere in the middle?

For a multitude of causes, unknown to former times, are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and, unfitting it for all voluntary exertion, to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor. The most effective of these causes are the great national events which are daily taking place, and the increasing accumulation of men in cities, where the uniformity of their occupations produces a craving for extraordinary incident, which the rapid communication of intelligence hourly gratifies. To this tendency of life and manners the literature and theatrical exhibitions of the country have conformed themselves.

There was an absurd piece making the rounds on social media the other day, written by a women’s studies professor (of course), which claimed that the recent SpaceX launch was just another example of patriarchy in action, because isn’t it just like men to think they can use up resources here before nonchalantly heading off into space to despoil virgin frontiers with their phallic rockets, etc. You can find eye-rolling material like that every day, of course; the only thing that was even slightly eyebrow-raising at all about this was that it was published by nbcnews.com. One of the people retweeting it commented that this was more proof that toxic intersectionality doesn’t stay confined to undergrads on campus, but leaks out and pollutes the groundwater of mainstream society too.

Typically, though, when we talk about the threat of campus radicalism to social norms, we picture it as the work of committed ideologues. While there are certainly plenty of earnest preachers of the intersectional gospel, one can’t help but notice that there are some rather more prosaic factors involved in broadcasting — normalizing, if you will — the message to a wider audience. The structure of online media incentivizes a race to publish inflammatory garbage for easy clicks, and the jaded boredom of an audience which “craves extraordinary incident” acts in concert with “rapid communication” to turn grotesque deformations of intelligent, thoughtful conversation into “great national events.” Hardly anyone involved in creating this climate of ridiculous opinion needs to be a true believer, but we all have to live under it regardless.

If, indeed, social media is to bad ideas what the first cities were to infectious diseases, one simple solution would be for far more people to stop carelessly coughing and sneezing. Ironic amusement can be just as much of a vector as ideology for spreading asinine notions. Intellectual bacteria don’t care why they get passed from host to host as long as they do. Wash your hands before linking or retweeting.

That Schopenhauer, like the Buddha in his Third Noble Truth, offered a means of escape from the pain of existence is also clear. But Schopenhauer was not a believing Buddhist, and admire as he did the teachings of the Dharma, the means of escape he proposed was altogether different in scope: a mere list of aesthetic and psychological coping mechanisms, including polite consideration for others; solitary philosophical reflection; immersion in great works of literature, art, and music; and ironic distancing of oneself from the futile preoccupations of humankind. These resemble Buddhism less than they do the teachings of the Greek philosopher Epicurus on virtuous restraint and appreciation of life’s simpler pleasures.

It’s a pretty naked feeling, seeing the bones and sinews of your entire worldview so briefly summarized and dissected. Describing them as “mere coping mechanisms” is just the insult added to injury! In all seriousness, though, the concept of “escape” is doing a lot of question-begging work here. Who is it that’s doing the escaping, and where is he escaping to? If you accept, as I do, the version of Buddhist thought which sees the flawed understanding of selfhood as being the cause of dukkha in the first place, trying to “escape” the pain of existence from the perspective of your individual self is just adding more fuel to the flames. Believing in a Buddha who perfected a technique for achieving impervious equanimity is just another way of believing in the supernatural.

The vast majority of couples I’ve spoken to who have opened up a central or ‘primary’ partnership have done so precisely as a way of being more faithful – a way of having neither to cheat nor leave. For them, it’s been a case of sustaining a good thing, keeping promises and allowing one another to thrive.

…‘But isn’t it an admission that something’s lacking?’ Bex asked.

‘Absolutely,’ I said, ‘but since when does any one person meet every single one of your needs? I’ve never had a relationship without several items left un-ticked on my ideal wish list. Finally I get to be respectfully honest about it without getting my head bitten off.’

The Idler is a publication essentially dedicated to the observation of limits. They’re not advocating rebellion so much as a sort of intellectual civil disobedience. They publish bodice-ripping fantasies of freedom for Office Space cubicle drones. Animated by the spirit of Bartleby the Scrivener, they look upon the modern cults of ambition, achievement and efficiency and demur, “I would prefer not to.” So it’s especially funny to see them publishing a piece on (the inaptly-named) polyamory, a trend which truly exemplifies the vain hope of “having it all.” The greed of the poly mentality, which would be readily apparent to the average Idler if the objects of desire were mere material possessions, manages to pass unnoticed disguised in the modern virtues of egalitarianism and non-judgment. Biology’s truth will out, I suppose. It’s easy to pose as indifferent to wealth and status, but much more difficult to voluntarily limit oneself from pleasures of the flesh, especially when you consider the typical demographics of the people attracted to free love — young, unattached, and cosmopolitan. I said before that I continue to wait in vain for one of these proselytizers to follow up the cliché about how “no one person meets every one of your needs” with the equally valid observation that most of our “needs” are merely impulsive wants that it would be better to ignore and outgrow. You’d think a publication devoted to criticizing restless acquisition would be ideally suited for that.

Those who contend that conservatives, in particular, overstate the threat on campus make several claims. These are the works of only a handful of misguided “college kids,” they contend. The few instances of extreme behavior on campus are not suggestive of any broader societal trend and don’t merit much attention. In fact, the limited scope of the problem, therefore, suggests that that conservative indignation is false–a convenient way to avoid confronting anti-social behavior among their ideological compatriots. All of this is fallacious.

Everyone believes that slippery slopes exist. We just disagree on their precise location and steepness. Or, you could say we’re all frogs in a pot of water, arguing over whether the temperature has noticeably increased in the last few minutes. Talented sophists can certainly make plausible cases for prioritizing attention toward almost any area of concern, from social to economic to environmental ills, but there’s no objective standard of proof that would settle these arguments with finality. Hume’s famous problem of induction still haunts us here — the fact that we can identify a developing trend doesn’t guarantee that it will continue. We’ll only know who was right with the benefit of hindsight one day. However tiny it may be, there’s still a leap of faith involved in choosing which issues are worth our attention and which can be safely ignored. And in our frivolous culture, where, despite all the sturm und drang, no one honestly expects things to drastically change one way or the other, arguments over what right-thinking people should properly be focusing their limited time and attention on become just another way of flashing our tribal I.D. badges.

I’m a conservative by temperament, if not by party affiliation. If I vote at all, it almost certainly won’t be in any election beyond the state level. To me, our sclerotic political institutions are like the Olympian gods of ancient Greece, completely beyond our control or fathoming, only worth keeping a wary eye on in the possibly-vain hope of not being crushed underfoot as they pursue their mysterious goals, heedless to the destruction they cause down below. I think that despite endless bipartisan ranting and raving, life is generally pretty good in this country, even for people without a lot of money or power, and that it provides a fair amount of freedom for people to live as they wish. The idea of man as a fallen creature prone to weakness and vice strikes me as portraying a psychological truth if not a religious one. I don’t believe that any amount of money or comfort, let alone any new sociopolitical arrangement, will make people content, because it’s too easy and tempting for people to be weak, lazy and prone to blame their unhappiness on something else. While not a Stoic, I do agree that the only thing most people achieve by complaining is becoming proficient at it and prone to practice it relentlessly. Obsessing over politics in particular causes most people to walk around with their own personal storm clouds permanently thundering in their heads. Work hard, treat people well, do your best to accept and ignore things beyond your control, and just get on with it — that’s the basic framework of my approach to life.

Most of all, I share the typically-conservative tragic view of life, in which perfection is inherently unattainable. It’s more than enough work for most people to cultivate the character and practice the good habits necessary to keep from accidentally or maliciously destroying the fragile blessings in life. The game always ends in defeat, so to speak, so it’s more important to play it well. To this end, art, music, and literature, also known as the humanities, are the greatest source of succor and solace this side of the River Styx. This is why I make my stand there. The humanities are the greatest respite we’ll ever have from our worldly tribulations, and these abhorrent philistines only care about turning them into just another branch of radical activist politics, with all the misery that entails. In everyday life, with limited time, energy, and resources at our disposal, it obviously makes sense to prioritize problems and tackle them in order of importance. In the big scheme of things, though, when we’re talking about problems that are global in scope if not existential in nature, that sort of one-at-a-time approach won’t work. Adolescent barbarians vandalizing their cultural heritage will never rise high enough on the list of pressing issues to be considered worthy of attention. Prioritizing be damned; some things are simply worth fighting for on principle, and this is the one I choose.

A truly progressive man, then, would be one who rejects the social and economic advantages that come from hegemonic masculinity and patriarchal conformity. A “feminine flourish,” as Cremin puts it, of perfume or lipstick or a silk blouse, would undercut a man’s power immediately in both the workplace and on the sexual market. But why is that still true, other than because men are heavily invested in retaining old forms and modes of power, and are unwilling to take even the smallest step toward voluntarily relinquishing it—as well as having a disinterest in, or belittling viewpoint of, femininity and women, and a fear of being mistaken for gay? You know, small things like that. The feminine potential that lies within men is often spoken about in terms of caretaking and parenting within marriages and nuclear families—which are forms of patriarchal control, too—rather than with regard to exploring sensuality, beauty, and softness.

I suppose I stand corrected. When I suggested the other day that our inclinations and behaviors around here were more truly genderbendy than all these bandwagon-jumpers who change their pronouns as often as their underwear, I failed to recognize that those ostensibly non-conforming practices were still taking place within the confines of a hetero-patriarchal relationship, rendering them null and void with regard to their revolutionary potential. Plus, the Lady of the House still harbors a reactionary fondness for fashionable clothes and makeup, while I, with my “gym bod” and “nostalgia bearding,” am clearly reacting out of subconscious fear of the, uh, “rise of the visibility of women and queers in the public realm,” desperately trying to reassert my threatened masculinity. Let’s not even mention my t-shirt and cargo-shorts wardrobe. Point is, “true” revolutionary socialism will only arrive when we’re all dressing like Ziggy Stardust. If the history of actually-existing revolutionary socialism is any indication, it’s more likely we’d all be wearing drab unisex Mao Suits, but okay, whatever.

Funny enough, I don’t actually have any problem with the idea that fashion is a largely-arbitrary social construction that could be changed with no lasting consequences to the social order. Whether we call them kilts, skirts, sarongs, kimonos, dresses or robes, I’m all in favor of dressing comfortably. If it became socially acceptable for guys to wear eyeliner, I’d probably do it. I fully admit that the only reason I don’t is because it’s not a hill I’m willing to answer ten thousand questions upon. Life is all about tradeoffs, and I simply don’t feel strongly enough about men’s indubitable right to wear makeup to do it myself. I mean, having a beard, even if only because I like the way it looks, apparently opens me to charges of being subconsciously homophobic and misogynist, so I really just don’t have the time to face interrogation over the subtext of my lip gloss as well. Is this proof of the stifling conformity of capitalist patriarchy, or is it just the adult recognition of the fact that not all battles are equally worth fighting?

No, the article would be unremarkable were it not for the fact of Crispin’s determination to squeeze in her typically half-baked ideas about socialist utopia. Well, since we’re all pretending to be able to read each other’s minds here, allow me to go ahead and speculate that her generic bowl of buzzword soup here is just the latest product of her admittedly-incomplete education and its attending inferiority complex. An intellectual orphan, left to fend for herself in the inhospitable, culturally sterile Midwest, trying to cobble together a sophisticated worldview through voracious, indiscriminate reading, she apparently impressed upon the first jargon-spouting critical theorist she encountered and never outgrew it. And so, sadly, here she is, close to middle age, proud of having attained fluency in academese, and evidently unaware that it does nothing to disguise the adolescent puerility of her ideas. “When we remove forms of control, we are left to act freely on our desires.” Yes, and only a superficially-intelligent naïf who confuses bookishness with wisdom assumes that this is likely to turn out well.

We have become obsessed with economic equality at the expense of economic growth. Inequality is said to be the transcendent issue of our time. Yet a society that is rich and unequal still beats one that is poor and equal any day of the week.

I don’t know about “transcendent,” but it sure is ubiquitous, at least. I long ago passed through the semantic satiation stage; now, I think I’m in the learned helplessness phase, where I can’t even react to the pain of hearing progressives yammering incessantly and nonsensically about income inequality; I just lay on the floor of my cage and tremble and whimper as if there’s no escape.

In slogan form, the argument often takes shape as a distinction between equality of opportunity versus equality of outcome. Exasperated, progressives will retort that they’re not demanding equality of outcome; it’s just that there’s no true equality of opportunity as long as there is structural inequality, i.e. privilege. Many will approvingly quote Anatole France’s famous snark about how the law, in its majestic equality, forbids both rich and poor to sleep under bridges and steal loaves of bread. Dig, if you will, the picture of society engaged in a race. The progressive perspective is that “equality of opportunity” still allows too many people to have a significant, even insurmountable, head start through “unearned” advantages. The only way the race can be made truly fair is to bring everyone back to the same starting line. Of course, doing so would entail the very same socioeconomic leveling that progressives insist they’re not aiming for. Equality of outcome by a different name — imposing it “before” rather than “after” the race. And let’s be honest — assuming such “true” equality of opportunity was even achievable, why would you fire the starting pistol and allow the same old inequalities to begin asserting themselves again? Are we supposed to believe that our former devotees of equality, possessing the power to eliminate disparities, would suddenly just shrug their shoulders and say, “Well, we ensured absolutely fair starting conditions, so it’s all up to individual skill and desire now. Whatever happens, happens. Let the best man win.”?

William Voegeli accurately noted that no matter how much the welfare state continues to grow (even under Republican administrations), progressives always insist it’s never enough. More specifically, they never make any attempt to quantify what “enough” might finally look like, or how we would recognize it when we get there. How much GDP is the redistributive state entitled to consume? How many new programs do we need? At what point might we factor in that human beings are never satisfied and always complaining no matter what? A cynic might suspect that such vagueness is the entire point, that it’s all about procuring blank checks and ever-increasing administrative power for you and your party by constantly stoking and inflaming moral outrage. No, it’s not that there’s a danger of progressives actually gaining enough power and ability to eliminate all the privileges and talents that give some people an automatic head start in life; it’s that to the extent that such ahistorical fantasies are relentlessly pursued by people too stupid to recognize them as fantasies, they can still cause an awful lot of damage.

I write in my notebook with the intention of stimulating good conversation, hoping that it will also be of use to some fellow traveler. But perhaps my notes are mere drunken chatter, the incoherent babbling of a dreamer. If so, read them as such.

Vox Populi

The prose is immaculate. [You] should be an English teacher…Do keep writing; you should get paid for it, but that’s hard to find.

—Noel

You are such a fantastic writer! I’m with Noel; your mad writing skills could lead to income.

—Sandi

WOW – I’m all ready to yell “FUCK YOU MAN” and I didn’t get through the first paragraph.

—Anonymous

You strike me as being too versatile to confine yourself to a single vein. You have such exceptional talent as a writer. Your style reminds me of Swift in its combination of ferocity and wit, and your metaphors manage to be vivid, accurate and original at the same time, a rare feat. Plus you’re funny as hell. So, my point is that what you actually write about is, in a sense, secondary. It’s the way you write that’s impressive, and never more convincingly than when you don’t even think you’re writing — I mean when you’re relaxed and expressing yourself spontaneously.

—Arthur

Posts like yours would be better if you read the posts you critique more carefully…I’ve yet to see anyone else misread or mischaracterize my post in the manner you have.

—Battochio

You truly have an incredible gift for clear thought expressed in the written word. You write the way people talk.